Ko Pha Ngan

(August 18-August 21)

After three days on the beaches of Ko Pha Ngan, it’s really difficult to leave. Ko Pha Ngan is an interesting island. It’s stuck between Ko Tao, the small “rustic” island that is in the top ten places in the world for scuba, and Ko Samui, the largest island of the archipelago that attracts many families and is full of activity. Ko Pha Ngan, in contrast, is known for its desolate beaches with long strips of sand with hardly a soul to populate them. That is, of course, between the raving parties that now happen four times a month. The Full Moon party has brought this island fame among tourists (partying tourists), so much so that there’s no longer just a Full Moon Party, but a half moon party and a no moon party, so the party animals no longer have to wait a month to go crazy, but can now do it every week. But still the Full Moon party is the biggest and best of them all, attracting tens of thousands of tourists for an all night drugged out party. So anyway, we missed the Full Moon Party by a few days, and left just before the Half Moon party, so the island was ours.

A quick ferry from Ko Tao, and a lucky welcoming from a nearby resort, we easily made our way to a cheap bungalow on the beach with quite possibly the coolest hosts on the island. The wife was Thai and the husband from Sweden. The wife’s name is Mai, and I never got the husband’s name so I’ll just call him Jakob. =) Jakob was super friendly with all the guests that came in. He started talking to us right away, asking what we were doing, how long we were staying, saying three nights surely wasn’t long enough. Our first day we just hung out on the beach, had dinner at the resort and watched Rambo I and II. They have an open common area where they cook food and watch movies every night. For the first time since the south, the food was comparable to Dad’s. Fried rice, green curry, masaman curry, chicken basil, they had all my favorites.

Our first full day there was one of those perfect days. We slept in, had a late breakfast of fried eggs, fruit and coffee. Then we rented motorbikes! Something I never thought I’d do. I’ll let you know now before I tell you how fun it was that none of us got injured in any way, which was somewhat surprising, considering all the foreigners we’ve been seeing with ankles and elbows bandaged up. So after a quick scooter lesson from Mai, we were on our way to explore the desolate island. Ko Pha Ngan supposedly has a bunch of waterfalls to see, but every attempt we made (which were few) led us to waterfalls with no water. Watching our route on our map was kind of like a cartoon. We would reach a dead end, or start biking up this really steep hill and realize that we would have to eventually bike back down, or just take every wrong turn possible. But it was great because we were on no time limit and didn’t really have an agenda except to have dinner on the west coast so we can catch the sunset. We finally ended up on this really great beach, which was surprisingly crowded with families, on the north end of the island. After climbing the rocks, soaking in the seawater, and laying in the sun, we settled down with some fruit shakes and hit the road on our cool little motorbikes in search of a good spot for dinner. As we got back on the main road, we realized that there was a massive storm heading right for us! The sky behind us was bright blue and we were heading straight into scary black clouds. We had to ditch our sunset plan (even though we saw the perfect bar on the beach on the way) and find anything under cover to wait out this storm. I feel like we biked for a very long time before we found a little town. It was strange because all the places we were passing were wide open but were pitch black. Then I realized the island had lost power and there were people in the restaurants under candlelight. Though it seemed like the storm should have hit us already, we managed to find a candlelit restaurant to take cover in before it started to pour. It was a beautiful storm that passed, as we enjoyed fried rice and Chang beer until the storm subsided and we could bike home.

The only other item on our Ko Pha Ngan agenda was to visit the Ang Thon National Marine Park. A 41 island archipelago, this park is only visited by day trips from Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Samui for snorkeling and kayaking. The three of us went with Jakob and his two friends. We thought these two guys were close friends of Jakob and helped him run the place. We later found out these friends were two German tourists who came to the Full Moon Party last month and never left. So they have now been in Ko Pha Ngan for a full month and two full moon parties, without ever finishing their plans to see the northern parts of Thailand. So the six of us had a grand time kayaking around the national park. They tour provided a pretty great lunch of masaman curry, mixed vegetables and pad thai, and the coolest tour guide ever, Eggy. Every stop along our tour, Eggy would declare, “Wake up everyone, we’re here!” even though we were all awake already. As we left the boat each time, he’d throw our shoes out of the boat, and yell “second hand shoes, 10 bhat!” I wonder if he uses the same jokes for every tour group, but I found it funny every time. The snorkeling to be honest was a little overrated, but we also did just get scuba certified in one of the top 10 scuba locations in the world, so it’s a little easy to be unimpressed. Kayaking around the islands was really cool. A lot of the islands had caves you could kayak under, and beaches to stop in and go for a swim in the freakishly turquoise water. A break for fresh espresso Thai iced coffee, and we were on our way back to Ko Pha Ngan, where Eggy told us to get off his boat so he can go see his boyfriend. He also told us he has a second job as a fire dancer for the Full Moon Party, and we should stick around for the next party to see him. Not surprising.

That night, back on our paradise resort, we packed our things to get ready for a trip to the north, had some satay and quail eggs at the night market down the street, and hung out with our new friends; the Germans. We stayed up with them and learned a Thai card game, Kang. The game is really simple, and there is seemingly little strategy involved, but Jillian and I managed to lose at least 100 bhat playing for a couple hours, so we had to call it quits early. It was sad to leave our little paradise island, but I’m excited to see Chiang Mai and the north, though it involved a lot to get there. We decided to fly from Phuket to Chiang Mai, but getting to Phuket from Ko Pha Ngan was a nightmare. The ferry to the mainland was fine, but the bus was a mess. Mai arranged the whole thing for us, and gave us great advice: “just don’t fall asleep, follow where people tell you to go, and if you’re scared, ask questions”. With that advice, we tried to get the bus from Don Sok to Phuket, an easy ride. Well first they put me on a bus separate from Jillian and Kayleigh. I ended up in some strange no name area before even making it to Suratthani. I asked if I could wait for my friends there, and some guy comes up to me and was like, oh I know you! You’re friends are safe in Phuket! Just get on this bus. And sure enough, it was the guy who separated us in Don Sok. I was thinking, really sir? My friends are safe in Phuket already? That seemed highly improbable, since it was only 45 minutes later and Phuket was at least another 4 hours. But I got on a bus, and found them waiting in Suratthani, and we eventually got onto a scam bus that we had to pay extra for, took longer, but did take us straight to the airport where we can fly straight to Chiang Mai, no obstacles. So though we did have a rough ending to our dream vacation in Ko Pha Ngan, I think Chiang Mai will be fun, where elephants and jungle await.